A Christmas miracle from high above

Earth rises over the surface of the moon in this iconic photograph taken from Apollo 8 during its orbit of the moon in December 1968 — the first photo of an earthrise. The mission’s list of milestones included: the first humans to journey to Earth’s moon, the first manned flight using the Saturn V rocket and the first to photograph the Earth from space.

On Dec. 21, 1968, Apollo 8 blasted off, taking the crew of three farther from Earth than man had ever been. Three days later, Apollo 8 made 10 orbits around the moon over the course of 20 hours. The Apollo crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first 10 verses from the Bible’s book of Genesis. The broadcast, on the ninth orbit, was timed to coincide with a full view of Earth, in the empty blackness of space, some 240,000 miles away.

Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts; commander Frank Borman, command module pilot Jim Lovell, and lunar module pilot William Anders did a live television broadcast from orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon seen from Apollo 8. Lovell said, “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.” They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from Genesis.

What was even more spectacular was that from late December 1968 to July 21, 1969, NASA launched Apollo 8 (lunar orbit in capsule), Apollo 9 the first launch of the LEM, tested in Earth orbit), Apollo 10 (the second launch with the LEM, this time to the Moon itself (but no landing)), and then finally The Big One, Apollo 11.

I was eight at the time, and remember it like yesterday.

As a side note from “stuff I heard” from old NASA types, after Gemini 7 they needed a crowbar to separate Frank Borman & Jim Lovell!

I remember being at Space Center Campground and watching the launch of Apollo VIII. It was an amazing sight on a perfect morning.

I started being a huge fan of the space program back in elementary school watching Project Mercury.

Now I build and launch model rockets. A few are of my own design.

To scrap NASA is to give up on going beyond the Earth. And Solida, are you willing to give up the internet? Without NASA, you can take communications back to the days of rotary dial phones! If we were to do it, you would be the first to complain!